June, 24, 1905.] 
to partake of the nature of visions. The dreamer again 
digs worms and even smells the odor from the sink 
spout. The mill and the wary old trout are again in 
evidence. The long-legged farmer still keeps an eye 
on his grass field and the "bully" runs down and 
thrashes the water. The dreamer again eats brown 
bread and milk, with a boy's appetite, and awakes with 
the old taste in his mouth. 
Camping Out. 
To many a city man there comes a time, now and 
then, when the great town wearies him. He hates its 
,'ights and smells and clangor. Every duty is a task, 
:ind every caller is a bore. There come to him visions 
of green iielas and far-rolling hills, of tall forests and 
cool, swift-flowing streams. He longs to lie under 
some grand eld tree, lazily watching the clouds drift 
by, dream'Iy conscious of carol and chirrup and hum- 
ming wings; or he yearns for the thrill of the chase, 
for the keen-eyed, silent stalking; or, rod in hand, he 
would search for that mysterious pool where the father 
of all bas.s lurks for his lure. He would be free, un- 
beholden, irresponsible, for the nonce — free to go or 
come at his own sweet will, to tarry where he lists, to 
do this, or do that, or do nothing, as his humor veeri. 
As for the hours, he would proclaim: 
"It shall be what o'clock I say it is." 
1 hus, basking and sporting in the great, clean out-of- 
doors, he would, for a blessed interval, 
"Forget six counties overhung with smoke, 
Forget the snorting steam and piston-stroke, . 
Forget the spreading of the hideous town." 
A vacation at a summer resort, or on a farm, is bet- 
ter than none, no doubt; but if one would realize in 
its perfection his dream of peace and freedom from 
every worldly care he should camp in the wild woods, 
far away from everything that suggests the hurry and 
strife ol civilized lite. It is good tor us, now and then, 
to go where we must hunt, capture, and cook our 
own meat, build our own shelter, do our own chores, 
and, in some measure, pick up again those lost arts 
of wildcraft that were our heritage through many thous- 
ands of years, but of which not one city man in ten 
knows anything at all. In the cities our tasks are so 
highly specialized, and so many things are done for us 
by other specialists, that we are in danger of becoming 
not merely a one-handed but a one-hngered and one- 
idead race. The self-dependent life of the wilderness 
nomad is a good corrective and alternative for our 
minds no less than for our bodies, bringing mental pro- 
cesses and bodily habits back to a normal state, and ex- 
ercising certain lobes and muscles that otherwise may 
atrophy from want of use. . 
Let your camp be the real thing. There are "camps" 
so-called that are not camps at all. A rustic cottage 
furnished with tables and chairs and beds brought from 
town, with rugs on the floor and pictures on the walls, 
with a stove m the kitchen and crockery in the pantry, 
an ice-house hardby, and daily delivery of farm 
products, groceries, and mails, may be a pleasant place 
in which to spend the summer with one's family and 
friends; but it is not a camp. Neither is a wilderness 
club house, built on a game preserve, looked after by 
a care-iaker, and supplied during the season with 
servants and the appurtenances of a good hotel. 
A camp proper is a nomad's biding place. He may 
occupy it for a season, or only for a single night, ac- 
cording as the site and its surroundings please or do 
riot please the wanderer's whim. If the fish do not 
bite, or the game has moved away, or unpleasant 
neighbors should intrude, or if anything else goes 
wrong, it is but an hour's work for him to pull up 
stakes and be off, seeking that particularly good place 
that generally lies beyond the horizon's rim. 
Your thoroughbred camper likes not the attentions 
of a landlord, nor will he sufifer himself to be rooted 
to the soil by cares of ownership or lease. It is not 
possession of the land, but of the landscape, that he 
enjoys. As for that, all the wild parts of the earth 
are his, by a title that carries with it no obligation but 
that he shall not desecrate nor lay them waste. 
Houses to such a one are little better than jails; 
fences and walls are his abomination; plowed fields are 
only so many patches of torn and tormented earth. 
The sleek comeliness of pastures is too prim and arti- 
ficial, domestic cattle have a meek and ignoble bearing, 
fields of grain are monotonous to his eyes, which turn 
for relief to some abandoned old field, over-grown with 
thicket, that still harbors some of the shy children of 
the wild. It is not the clearing, but the untouched 
wilderness, that is the camper's real home. He is 
brother to that good, old friend of mine who, in gentle 
satire of our formal gardens and close-cropped lawns; 
was wont to say, "I love the unimproved works of 
God." He likes to wander alone in the forest, tasting 
the raw svv^eets and pungencies that uncloyed palates 
craved in the childhood of our race. To him 
"The shelter of a rock 
Is sweeter than the roofs of all the world." 
The charm of nomadic life is its freedom from care, 
its unrestrained liberty of action, and the proud self- 
reliance of one who is absolutely his own master, free 
to follow his bent in his own way, and cheerfully, in 
turn, suffering the penalties that nature visits upon him 
for every slip of mind or bungling of his hand. Carry- 
ing with him, as he does, in a few small bundles, all that 
he needs to provide food and shelter in any land, 
whether habited or uninhabited, the camper is lord of 
himself and of his surroundings. 
"Free is the bird in the air, 
And the fish where the river flows; 
Free is the deer in the wood, 
And the gipsy wherever he goes. 
Hurrah I 
And the gypsy wherever he goes." 
There is a dash of the gipsy in every one of us who 
is worth his salt. Horace Kephart. 
Mbdlin, N. C. 
FORE ST AND STREAM. 
Floating Down the Mississippi. 
An Island Proprietor, 
-We were blown into St. Louis landing, and had to 
stay there all night. A lone fisherman on the point 
told us that there was a man at Pushmataha who might 
buy the cabin boat, and the two wanted to sell the craft. 
\yhat they intended to do thereafter did not appear. 
They were pleasant as could be to me, but at intervals 
during each day they broke into harsh AvOrds the under- 
tone of which was bitter. The coming of the lone fish- 
erman on a visit to our boat cut a jangle of words in 
two. The fisherman said that he felt pretty lonesome 
sometimes. • 
"But I make money here," he exclaimed, "twenty-five 
dollars a week isn't too much to expect. Some tim.e I 
will have enough in my bank up to Memphis — I keep 
all my money in the bank. I'm afraid of the niggers 
back on the plantations." He added these words has- 
tily. It was indiscretion to lead a river gang to infer 
that there might be money in his possession. His 
tongue, like that of most men who live alone, was 
loosed by human companionship, and he talked about 
mending his nets, drinking his two quarts of whisky 
after every down trip the packet Kate Adams made, 
and about the raw sores the cold weather brought to 
his hands. 
In pulling out of Hughey's landing, a cat had been 
left on the bank, of which both my boatmates were 
extremely fond. Its absence was not noted until night, 
and then they two fell to accusing each other; but a 
night's sleep repressed the cat trouble. Morning dawned 
a pleasant day, and before breakfast, we took to the 
current, entering the chute of Island 66 a few rods down 
stream. The chute proved interesting, for there were 
plenty of snags in it, and the call went up constantly, 
"Is that a snag? Hit 'er a lick! Can't you see that 
ripple a-b'ilin' up there?" It was exciting dodging 
snags that were fit to rip the bottom out of the cabin 
boat in the current that was running there. In fifteen 
or twenty minutes we ran into the river again, and 
the Medicine Man told us to eat breakfast, as he could 
manage the boat in the wide current. It was a sensation 
worth having, sitting in the boat while the current, a 
mile wide, carried us along. It was different from the 
feeling in an open boat, or in a. steamer. There is no 
force so regular, overpowering and quiet as that of a 
wide stream of the Mississippi sort. One on this kind, 
is so far .from, land, and a tiny figure on the water, espe- 
cially when enclosed by the quarter-inch thick sides of 
a shanty boat. 
The effect of a calm day afloat was quieting to my 
cornpanions. Nevertheless, they scanned the shores 
anxiously. Opposite the chute of 66, was a big rag 
town — Malone's landing levee camp. The river had 
eaten into the bank there to such an extent that it was 
necessary to put up a new levee 200 yards or more be- 
hind the one in jeopardy. Had it not been impossible 
to make it, we would have gone to the landing there 
and examined the prospect of what the Medicine Man 
called "a haul at our grafts." The current carried us 
along under a caving bank, on the west side, on top of 
which was a growth of culled timber. It seemed unin- 
habited, and dismal in the extreme. Nevertheless I was 
startled to hear a voice hailing from the bank — a man 
asked us if we didn't want to buy some brass? Reply- 
ing to a question, he said he had about 40 pounds, and 
asked five cents a pound for it. " 'Tain't worth landing 
for!" the Gambler called back, and the man fell to whit- 
ling with an angry look on his face. 
A hundred rods further down, we were sitting around 
the stove, talking, when there was a "sough" ahead, 
and the next moment the cabin boat whirled half 
around, and things on the wall jangled, while a dark 
shadow swept over the scene. They jumped for the 
bow, and I ran astern, for the current had run us into 
the sucking waters at the head of a close, boiling bank 
eddy. The suck was 20 feet across and the bow of the 
cabin boat nodded distinctly as the suck water dived 
whirling at the bow. The stern of the big boat swung 
in toward the bank, and thinking my skiff was going to 
be crushed against the dirt, I jumped into it and shoved 
clear, and probably averted the catastrophe which I 
feared. We rowed the cabin boat a dozen rods clear 
of the bank, and then resumed our talk at the stove. 
Looking astern, we saw a little green cabin boat, per- 
haps a mile distant. For some reason, it caught swifter 
slants in the current, and after a time, came within a 
couple of hundred yards, upon which the strangers 
manned the sweeps and came at us in a fashion that was 
interesting. Three men were on board, and they pushed 
the oars vigorously. I think probably they were as 
tough looking as we were. One was a big, burly chap, 
another was a little man with dark, intensely red 
whiskers, and the third was a sullen brunette, keen- 
looking individual. They hailed when half a hundred 
yards distant: 
"Hay, there! Ain't your name Spears?" 
It took me half a minute to recall the voice, and then 
I remembered Memphis, and how I was done by a 
pickpocket, who was also a glib talker. My greeting 
wasn't cordial, and I told my gang that the chaps com- 
ing were probably bad men. I had told them of the 
Memphis experience, and that I had heard at Helena 
of some one asking about me. The Gambler took his 
Colts from the trunk, and shoved it into his trousers 
under his left arm, where it was concealed by his coat. 
Then he greeted the men who had come down on us. 
They were a precious outfit — as precious as our own, 
apparently. One had a brand new camera, and claimed 
to be a writer. One had a cistern cleaner, and claimed 
his trade was cleaning cisterns. The other was the red 
whiskered man, whose face was the hardest and crudest 
of any that I ever saw. I was invited on board the 
green boat, and went. The craft was 12 feet by 7, in- 
side the cabin. Guns were hung from the carlins over- 
head, and carpenter tools were on all sides — a new saw, 
hammer, ax, auger-bit. I recalled the hardware and 
gun shop which had been robbed at Helena, and won- 
dered if the new guns I was looking at were not a part 
of the stolen property. 
Their business with us was to find out just who I was 
with, and on what basis I was with them. The red- 
whiskered man, who had hailed me was very cordial. 
491 
He said that he'd got right down to his last cent before 
his partner came to Memphis. He had lived in a tent, 
below Memphis bridge, at the last, and now he often; 
wished he might give me a chance to enjoy goose shoot-: 
ing on a sandbar. 
The big fellow tackled the Medicine Man, and asked 
pointed questions as to the line being followed, includ-, 
mg some as to what my status on the boat was. The 
dark man tackled the Gambler. The Gambler submitted 
to the pumping process for about five minutes, and he 
lied beautifully about where, how and when he came on 
the river. The cistern cle.mer thought he was pro- 
gressing finely, and at Jasg insinuated: "I s'pose you're 
trading some.?" 
"Trading!" the Gambler ')lurted out, with long sup- 
pressed scorn. "Hell— I'm a gambler. Can't you see 
the table there?" 
The cistern cleaner stSHj 'tiered an apology, and left 
the boat without another « ord. In the meantime, the 
Medicine Man had drawiS S rae nice long lies from the 
big man, and the red-whM ired man had lapsed into a 
silence which was glum. P rposely, they had separated 
us, and now they got U9 ,tO[ jether again, and a strained, 
but animated conversation yas entered into. The big 
man took a leading part. I'le posed as a traveler from 
'way back, but his eloqutfce was checked when the 
Gambler spread a blanket on his trunk and began to 
throw dice across it. The , Lttle twirl the Gambler gave 
the cubes was too evider^ a token of skill and long 
practice. The large masa k d the red-whiskered one ex- 
changed meaning glanciS They looked at me dubi-^ 
ously, thought a while, m> I then one asked me flatly 
if I didn't want to drop ofi in Scrub Grass Bend, which 
we were approaching. 
"One of the best points )r wild geese on the river!" 
the big fellow remarked "Just the place for a true 
sportsman to enj'y himseM i-shootin' and a-gittin' poses 
with his camera. Yes, sif y^ou'd be welcome with us — 
promise you the best gt ise shooting you ever had. 
You'd have a time to write about, too." The whiskered 
man suppressed a glint in his eye. 
I grinned on them pleasantly, and said I was with 
friends I didn't care to leave. They started away, re- 
marking that they would see me again down the river 
some time. We watched them make Scrub Grass tow- 
head, where they lied in. 
"That man with the red whiskers would cut a throat," 
the^ Gambler remarked. "I guess they've tumbled." 
The map warned us that we were approaching the 
mouth of White River, and that there was a chute which 
we would better investigate before going down to the 
mouth of the river. A new railroad was being built a 
few miles back in the swamp, and on White River was a 
big bridge job. My partners heard that there were two 
or three hundred cabin boats up there, and both of 
them wanted to know more about the place. The Gam- 
bler thought, with reason, that a shanty boat town 
would offer opportunities unrivaled for running an open 
game, I knew it would be an opportunity for me,' and 
the Medicine Man thought perhaps he could sell medi- 
cine there. He expressed one sentiment, however, 
which was interesting. 
"I don't like going up them rivers. You don't have a 
ghost of a show, gitting away if anybody gits after you." 
It was nine miles up to the new bridge, and that counted 
ctgainst the project of going so far from the wide, trail- 
less Mississippi. 
The river man dislikes a place that doesn't permit of 
sudden, silent and speedy egress— that is, river men of 
the type with which I was traveling. 
Our speed was that of the current, minus the wind.. 
The maps of the river commission showed where we 
v/ere hour by hour. We swept the banks with our 
glasses, and pointed out the ditch-like bays, bayous, 
ends of lakes, foots of islands and landings. Shed- 
shanties were the warehouses at most of the landings. 
We knew a steamer was due by the presence of the cot- 
ton bale heaps. A lime after we heard the heavy- 
throated whistle of the packet, men riding up to the 
landing on horseback, indicted the ones who had press- 
ing business with the steamboat clerk. The sight of 
these things gave one the feeling which country lads 
have when walking clown Broadway, New York, at 
12:30 o'clock, afternoon, on a business day — the gone- 
ness of a hungry stomach, or of an owl among the blue- 
jays. We were not one of the bank people, but a party 
much apart from all humanity we could expect to see. 
Yet, when we landed at the chute running into. White 
River, a great between-the-levee man greeted us with 
cordiality and friendliness. 
G. D. Sibley owns Sibley's or Cumbyville island 
(Island 72), not far above Rosedale, Mississippi. White 
River, the Mississippi and the chute, I believe, form this 
island, which is eighteen miles long and six wide. It 
is timbered heavily, and Sibley had a lot of logs in the 
river ready for rafting when we were there. The river 
was rising and the logs were in jeopardy, in which fact 
Mr. Sibley seemed not to be concerned himself. They 
say at Rosedale that Sibley has more than he can do 
with anyhow, so he could maintain an easy poise in the 
face of loss. On one subject, Sibley had no doubts to 
express. He was emphatic in the belief that the levee 
system is an unmitigated evil. Those behind a levee, he 
said, are taxed to death, and those in front of it are 
flooded out of existence. To his mind, there ought to 
be no levees, save lateral ones. Then the soil would 
be enriched by silt deposits, and the disastrous 
crevasses would be done away with. 
"I haven't any shore here," he said. "I can't culti- 
vate my island because the levees keep the waters up 
till long after the planting season, and they increase the 
current to such an extent that the fields would be torn 
to pieces by the water, if there were any to be torn. I 
had a farm of 1,300 acres thrown out by the levees 
being built behind it." 
But of his troubles, Mr. Sibley had little to say. No 
man in the bottoms has enjoyed hunting more than he 
has. He was sixty-six years of age when I saw him, 
and he had began hunting at six. Bears were his favor- 
ite game. He had killed dozens of them, and' one of 
his adventures has become a stock story of half a 
thousand Mississippi Valley hunters. The adventure 
happened during an overflow. Sibley wanted to get a 
bear, so he started out in his dugout, hoping to locate 
one of the animals. He cruised the water-covered 
